For Elusive Tizen Smartphone, Another New Launch Date

Long-suffering supporters of Samsung Electronics 's Tizen operating system have a new date to look forward to…maybe.

In an interviewwith Reuters published Wednesday, a Samsung executive said that a smartphone running Tizen — an upstart operating system backed by Samsung, Intel and others – would be launched around the end of the second quarter.

The Samsung Galaxy S5, which runs on Android.

Samsung

Yoon Han-kil, senior vice president of Samsung’s product strategy team, told Reuters that the operating system, a potential rival to Apple 's iOS and Google 's Android operating systems, would power Samsung phones “in a few countries where we can do well,” without elaborating.

A spokesman for the company, asked to confirm the remarks, said that Samsung would launch a Tizen phone this year, but said that “the exact timing of the launch and the number of devices will vary depending on market conditions.”

Samsung has closely guarded its plans for a Tizen smartphone. That’s partly because of internal headaches, and partly because a Samsung smartphone running Tizen is likely to dial up any simmering tensions between Samsung and Google — a partnership that has so far richly benefited both companies.

Samsung’s Android-powered smartphones, including the Galaxy S5 that it launched last week in 125 countries, have helped catapult Google to a leading position in mobile software and services. So any move by Samsung to nurture its own homegrown operating system could put the two giants at odds.

Whatever the reason, it has so far proven wise to not get too hung up on the timing of a Tizen smartphone.

That’s not to say that the commercialization of the Tizen platform has been stagnant. Last year, Samsung released a Tizen camera. And earlier this year at Mobile World Congress, it released a Tizen smartwatch to great fanfare — its flagship Gear 2.